Digitalization & Transparency

McKinsey has several analysts who publish on the subject of 'digitalization'. The basic idea, to which I subscribe and find compelling, is that IT can be transforming the way that businesses interact with their customers and with the public. 

Generally when you say 'IT' however, you get this (old) idea in your mind about a staff of managers and programmers supporting the internal network, enterprise class servers, 'critical' applications to a largely internal, intranet captive audience of employees and contractors. 'Digital' incorporates social media and industry standard reporting systems, even beyond CRM, which is about as far as most companies go to tighten their relationship with declared, paying customers in the marketplace.

So my POV with regard to Digital means the holy grail of transparency.

 

Imagine the nightmare scenario. Your company is on the witness stand or testifying before Congress. What does the entire planet want to know? They will always ask "Who knew what and when?" That is the most difficult question any organization can face, and it generally requires a level of systems integration that very few organizations can muster. However, it is fundamentally true for the most high stakes information games on the planet, with commodities & securities trading systems, with military communications, with first responders and with national security intel systems. 

Knowing who knows what and exactly when in an auditable system, real-time, is the most advanced IT systems that exist - at least to my knowledge. Most businesses are light years away from that level of systems integration. McKinsey perceives that and knows that any business or organization that can advance their systems in that direction will have a huge advantage. 

I try to make my living with this kind of thing in mind, and yes I do analytics. Let me give you another example. Plane crash. Right now, the capability exists to stream flight recorder (and other sensor) information realtime and have enough eyes watching so that anomalies can generate alerts and produce corrective action. However the airlines have not decided to spend time and money on making those advances. There's nothing a traditional IT organization could do to cost justify that. However a forward thinking organization sees the advantage of digitalization transparency.